The editorial staff has received a tip about some recently released Swedish revolutionary music.
The album ”SÅNGER UR KAMPEN, VOL. 1” has recently been published on Bandcamp. The group that released it is called “Strålande röd.” The album consists of revolutionary songs from various countries in both Swedish and English, as well as other Swedish revolutionary songs that have not been previously published. We welcome this initiative, as the development and consolidation of a revolutionary culture is essential for the formation or reconstitution of communist parties—and thus also for the victory of the people’s war—in every country, and this album serves that purpose well.
We have chosen to highlight a few of the songs that we consider to be particularly important.
”Kämpande partisan” – This is a Swedish translation of the song “Combatiente Guerrillero” from Peru. It deals with the lives and worldview of the fighters in the People’s Liberation Army (EPL), under the leadership of the Communist Party of Peru, and has the role of the individual in the people’s war as its central theme. It refers to “Kilincho”, the name for the sparrowhawk in certain parts of Peru, presumably of Quechua origin, which is used as the name for a red combatant. The band appears to have taken its name from the lyrics, which read: “For an old order the sun sets; for the new, it rises, radiant and red.” For a revolutionary, there is nothing finer, nothing else but to participate in, develop and defend the revolution; for without revolution, without power in the hands of the oppressed classes, everything is an illusion. All the victories won by workers and peasants in their trade union struggles in Peru can be swept away at any moment as long as they are not defended with guns, and that defence cannot be maintained without New Power. The only ways to survive in that society without making a revolution are to bow so low that you can smell your ancestors, or to become a vile parasite riding on the backs of the working people and defended by their oppressors. Only the most heartless, shameless and worthless people can do that.
”Dandakaranya” – This song appears to be of Swedish origin. Its message is clear: the Communist Party of India (Maoists) and the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA) should, can and will triumph over the reactionary Indian state. They are currently based mainly in Dandakaranya, a large forested area in central and eastern India where a large proportion of the population are Adivasis, that is to say, ethnic groups oppressed in every conceivable way, not least by the extreme violence of the police and their auxiliary forces. Supporting the Indian revolution is of particular importance today, as it faces immense difficulties caused by the misdeeds of opportunism, capitulationism and open reaction.
”Kärlekssången” – Love is the feeling that prepares a person to devote their life to something. But to what? The PKP pointed this out in ‘Procedure for celebrating a marriage before the Party or before the New State’:
“The relationship between a man and a woman is the most direct and profoundly human of all; it constitutes a social relationship. When those entering into this relationship are communists (or revolutionaries), this union must contribute to the struggle that both are waging for communism (or for the revolution).”
The contradiction between the two types of love—the kind that contributes to the revolutionary struggle and the kind that hinders it—is brought to a head at various stages by the development of society. For example, what is love worth in Palestine without resistance to Yankee-Zionist aggression? What is love worth in the base areas of the people’s war in Peru, India, Turkey and the Philippines without participation in the revolution? When the liberation of the people is at stake, every romantic relationship is transformed into either an obstacle or a spur to the struggle, and this characteristic becomes the defining feature of the relationship. But as Maoists, we understand that ‘every difference already contains a contradiction and that difference in itself is a contradiction’, that Swedish society is already facing the question of revolution or counter-revolution, even if it is not as prominent as in Peru, Palestine or India. This fact compels one to ask the questions: What am I fighting for? What do I actually love? Whom does my love serve—the Swedish working class and the peoples of the world, or the deceitful minority of exploiters?